plunge for about a month now...we got fussed at often for this. her first steps were probably a couple of weeks ago; mainly from one piece of furniture to another, but last week she decided she was done with the crawling; that walking will now be the preferred mode of transportation. it's pretty comical actually, because she's such a little thing and she still has no hair to speak of. needless to say, she is into everything now...nothing is safe. she is quite the little lady too-always pushing her shopping cart around and rarely ever without her purple 'pearls'.
the snow started falling in earnest yesterday as we were wrapping up church. it takes us about an hour to 'break down' following crossroads (our new worship gathering on sunday mornings), and then we tend to stand around and talk forever (the same thing i used to get frustrated with my dad about)...so, by the time we were ready to make the trip home there was already about 5 inches of snow on the ground and the roads were completely covered. i had piper drive the jeep and i drove our van home. we made it as far as the bottom of our hill and i had to park the van after a couple of failed attempts to find enough speed to make it up...it's still there. after everyone went down for a nap (piper included-who is doing great. she 'wears' pregnancy so well, and other than being tired by the end of her day, is dong wonderfully-she still gets out and runs about 6 miles a day) i took the dogs out for a long walk in the snow. they 
loved it. we went over to the parkway near our house and had it to ourselves...it was beautiful. hope to go ride tuesday or wednesday (i did get out last week with my friend wade...in the driving rain-it was awesome). 
i forgot to mention in the last post that we found out recently that brayden is allergic to (almost everything)...wheat, egg whites, milk, cheese...and a slight nut allergy (which we thought was the chief allergy and why we had him checked in the first place. we have had to make some serious diet adjustments which has been a little tough, but he has rolled with it like a champ. we never really would have known that he had these allergies, b/c there was never really a 'reaction' that we could see, but since we've adjusted his diet he is a totally different little boy-much happier, much less tired, much sharper in conversation and play...we are so thankful to have found out he dealt with this and are thankful for the way he has responded to a change in some of the food he loved before. the doctor believes he will grow out of these allergies...we are praying that this is true.
